Fabien Vehlmann

Kerascoet

Helge Dascher

A group of little people find themselves without a home in this horror fantasy classic Newly homeless, a group of fairies find themselves trying to adapt to their new life in the forest. As they dodge dangers from both without and within, optimistic Aurora steps forward to organize and help build a new community. Slowly, the world around them becomes more treacherous as petty rivalries and factions form. Beautiful Darkness became a bestseller and an instant classic when it was released in 2014. This paperback edition of the modern horror classic contains added material, preparatory sketches, and unused art. While Kerascoët mix gorgeous watercolors and spritely cartoon characters, Fabien Vehlmann takes the story into bleaker territory as the seasons change and the darkness descends. As with any great horror, there are moments of calm and jarring shocks while a looming dread hangs over the forest.

Beautiful Darkness

Guy Delisle

APPEARED ON BEST OF THE YEAR LISTS FROM NPR, WASHINGTON POST, PASTE, AND MORE!

How does one survive when all hope is lost?

In the middle of the night in 1997, Doctors Without Borders administrator Christophe André was kidnapped by armed men and taken away to an unknown destination in the Caucasus region. For three months, André was kept handcuffed in solitary confinement, with little to survive on and almost no contact with the outside world. Close to twenty years later, award-winning cartoonist Guy Delisle (Pyongyang, Jerusalem, Shenzhen, Burma Chronicles) recounts André's harrowing experience in Hostage, a book that attests to the power of one man's determination in the face of a hopeless situation.

Marking a departure from the author's celebrated first-person travelogues, Delisle tells the story through the perspective of the titular captive, who strives to keep his mind alert as desperation starts to set in. Working in a pared down style with muted color washes, Delisle conveys the psychological effects of solitary confinement, compelling us to ask ourselves some difficult questions regarding the repercussions of negotiating with kidnappers and what it really means to be free. Thoughtful, intense, and moving, Hostage takes a profound look at what drives our will to survive in the darkest of moments.

Hostage

A Journey in North Korea

Pyongyang

Marguerite Abouet

Clément Oubrerie

“Aya is an irresistible comedy, a couple of love stories and a tale for becoming African. It’s essential reading.” —Joann Sfar, cartoonist of The Rabbi’s Cat Ivory Coast, 1978. It’s a golden time, and the nation, too—an oasis of affluence and stability in West Africa—seems fueled by something wondrous. Aya is loosely based upon Marguerite Abouet’s youth in Yop City. It is the story of the studious and clear-sighted nineteen-year-old Aya, her easygoing friends Adjoua and Bintou, and their meddling relatives and neighbors. It’s a wryly funny, breezy account of the simple pleasures and private troubles of everyday life in Yop City. Clément Oubrerie’s warm colors and energetic, playful line connect expressively with Marguerite Abouet’s vibrant writing. This reworked edition offers readers the chance to immerse themselves in Abouet’s Yop City, bringing together the first three volumes of the series in Book One. Drawn & Quarterly will release volumes four through six of the original French series (as yet unpublished in English) in Book Two. Aya is the winner of the Best First Album award at the Angoulême International Comics Festival, the Children’s Africana Book Award, and the Glyph Award; was nominated for the Quill Award, the YALSA’s Great Graphic Novels list, and the Eisner Award; and was included on “best of” lists from The Washington Post, Booklist, Publishers Weekly, and School Library Journal.

Aya: Life in Yop City

Pascal Girard

Pascal is in a bad place in life and when he finds someone shoplifting a copy of his book in the store one day, he is intrigued and decides to do some detective work. 

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Alabama

A hilarious romantic comedy about kleptomania and booklovers Pascal is in a bad place. He and his longtime girlfriend have just broken up, he's got writer's block, and when he goes out for a run to ease his frazzled nerves, he falls and injures his back so badly that he's strictly forbidden from running. What's an endorphin-loving cartoonist to do? In a bid to distract himself, Pascal throws himself into his other pleasure: reading. And while at the bookstore one day, he spies a young woman picking up his own book. But then she darts out of the shop without paying. Bemused, he decides to figure out why she did it. Petty Theft is a comedy of errors, a laugh-out-loud account of a man on a mission, and a testament to the addictiveness of book ownership. Pascal Girard intermingles an all-too-true-to-life snapshot of contemporary relationships with slapstick trials and dryly funny tribulations in this delightfully readable book. From the award-winning author of Reunion, Petty Theft is a deftly told, finely drawn contemporary romance that will keep booklovers on the edge of their seats from the first page until the denouement.

Petty Theft

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Philippe Girard

On a Wire

A captivating, revealing biography of the legendary musician and poet Leonard Cohen opens in Los Angeles on the last night of the man’s life in 2016. Alone in his final hours, the beloved writer and musician ponders his existence in a series of flashbacks that reveal the ups and downs of a storied career. A young Cohen traded in the promise of steady employment in his family’s Montreal garment business for the unlikely path of a literary poet. His life took another sharp turn when, already in his thirties, he recorded his first album to widespread international acclaim. Along the way he encountered a who’s who of musical luminaries, including Lou Reed, Nico, Janis Joplin, and Joni Mitchell. And then there’s Phil Spector, the notorious music impresario who held a gun to Cohen’s head during a coke-fueled, all-night recording session. Later in Cohen’s life, there’s the story of "Hallelujah," one of his most famous songs, and its slow rise from relative obscurity when first recorded in the 1980s to its iconic status a decade later with covers by John Cale and Jeff Buckley. And the period when Cohen went broke after his manager embezzled his lifetime savings, which ironically sparked an unlikely career resurgence and several worldwide tours in the 2000s. Written with careful attention to detail and drawn with a palette of warm, lush colors by the Quebec-based cartoonist Philippe Girard, Leonard Cohen is an engaging portrait of a cultural icon.

Leonard Cohen

Volume Three

Aya has captured the hearts of North American readers of all ages for the rare portrait it paints of a vibrant, happy, bourgeois Ivory Coast in the 1970s, based upon Marguerite Abouet's youth in Yop City. Not only is Aya complemented with Clément Oubrerie's gorgeous artwork, but the volumes also offer a slice-of-life peek into African culture: complete with recipes, glossaries, and wardrobe instructions for turning one's pagne (brightly colored fabric) into a skirt, head wrap, or baby carrier. Engaging and fun, the universal stories in Aya provide a much-needed context for today's heartbreaking news stories. Aya is the winner of the Best First Album award at the Angoulême International Comics Festival, the Children's Africana Book Award, and the Glyph Award; was nominated for the Quill Award, the YALSA's Great Graphic Novels list, and the Eisner Award; and was included on "best of" lists in The Washington Post, Booklist, Publishers Weekly, and School Library Journal.

Aya: the Secrets Come Out

Ivorian bonus, (pages [1]-[9]) includes glossary, recipes, and descriptions of customs.

Chronicles from the Holy City

"[Jerusalem] is a small miracle: concise, even-handed, highly particular." —The Guardian Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City is the acclaimed graphic memoirist Guy Delisle's strongest work yet, a thoughtful and moving travelogue about life in contemporary Jerusalem. Delisle expertly lays the groundwork for a cultural road map of the Holy City, utilizing the classic "stranger in a strange land" point of view that made his other books required reading for understanding what daily life is like in cities few are able to travel to. Jerusalem explores the complexities of a city that represents so much to so many. It eloquently examines the impact of conflict on the lives of people on both sides of the wall while drolly recounting the quotidian: checkpoints, traffic jams, and holidays. When observing the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim populations that call Jerusalem home, Delisle's drawn line is both sensitive and fair, assuming nothing and drawing everything. A sixteen-page appendix to the paperback edition lets the reader behind the curtain, revealing intimate process sketches from Delisle's time in Jerusalem. Jerusalem is a masterfully hewn travelogue; topping Best of 2012 lists from The Guardian, Paste, and the Montreal Gazette, it was the graphic novel of the year.

Jerusalem

Clement Oubrerie

THE DRAMATIC CONCLUSION TO THE AYA SERIESTHE DRAMATIC CONCLUSION TO THE AYA SERIES

Aya: Love in Yop City comprises the final three chapters of the Aya story, episodes never before seen in English. Aya is a lighthearted story about life in the Ivory Coast during the 1970s, a particularly thriving and wealthy time in the country's history.

While the stories found in Aya: Love in Yop City maintain their familiar tone, quick pace, and joyfulness, we see Aya and her friends beginning to make serious decisions about their future. When a professor tries to take advantage of Aya, her plans to become a doctor are seriously shaken, and she vows to take revenge on the lecherous man. With a little help from the tight-knit community of Yopougon though, Aya comes through these trials stronger than ever.

This second volume of the complete Aya includes unique appendices - recipes, guides to understanding Ivorian slang, street sketches, and concluding remarks from Marguerite Abouet explaining history and social milieu. Inspired by Abouet's childhood, the series has received praise for offering relief from the disaster-struck focus of most stories set in Africa. Aya is the winner of the Best First Album Award at the AngoulUme International Comics Festival; was nominated for the YALSA's Great Graphic Novels list; and was included on best of" lists from The Washington Post, Booklist, Publishers Weekly, and School Library Journal .


Aya: Love in Yop City

Tian Veasna

Year of the Rabbit by Tian Veasna #fiction
picture novel 
9781770463769

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

One family's quest to survive the devastation of the Khmer Rouge

"Striking and moving... The comics form allows readers [to] understand through chronological progression and a close view how horror can become the stuff of the everyday."--The New York Times

Year of the Rabbit tells the true story of one family's desperate struggle to survive the murderous reign of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. In 1975, the Khmer Rouge seized power in the capital city of Phnom Penh. Immediately after declaring victory in the war, they set about evacuating the country's major cities with the brutal ruthlessness and disregard for humanity that characterized the regime ultimately responsible for the deaths of one million citizens.

Cartoonist Tian Veasna was born just three days after the Khmer Rouge takeover, as his family set forth on the chaotic mass exodus from Phnom Penh. Year of the Rabbit is based on firsthand accounts, all told from the perspective of his parents and other close relatives. Stripped of any money or material possessions, Veasna's family found themselves exiled to the barren countryside along with thousands of others, where food was scarce and brutal violence a constant threat.

Year of the Rabbit shows the reality of life in the work camps, where Veasna's family bartered for goods, where children were instructed to spy on their parents, and where reading was proof positive of being a class traitor. Constantly on the edge of annihilation, they realized there was only one choice--they had to escape Cambodia and become refugees. Veasna has created a harrowing, deeply personal account of one of the twentieth century's greatest tragedies.

Year of the Rabbit

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Julie Delporte

A poetic novel that plumbs the depths of self-doubt and technological fatigueA poetic novel that plumbs the depths of self-doubt and technological fatigue

Julie Delporte's Everywhere Antennas is a deeply affecting, sparely constructed novel, equal parts Walden and The Bell Jar . Told in the first person, it offers diary-like entries from an anonymous narrator who is undergoing a nervous breakdown and struggling to hold together a failing relationship. In soft, flowing colored pencil, Delporte shows her narrator coming to terms with a rare and misunderstood sensitivity to the radiation emitted by the televisions, cell phones, and computers that permeate urban life.
On each page a few words are paired with an image or two, conveying a moment or a thought simply but effectively. Over the course of the book, the anonymous narrator moves from place to place, looking for solutions to her melancholy in the countryside via isolation and in the city with friends, sometimes turning to medication for answers. Throughout, her emotional and intellectual landscape receives as much attention as her physical surroundings.
Everywhere Antennas is the portrait of a woman caught in the margins, struggling to balance the demands of technology and modern life with the need to find meaningful relationships and work. Roughly hewn figures, sketched in pencil crayon on brightly contrasting backgrounds, populate the pages of this flowing, emotive work. With Everywhere Antennas, Delporte proves herself a master craftswoman of heartbreakingly personal, beautifully literary graphic fiction.


Everywhere Antennas

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Pennsylvania

Bigfoot presents a wry take on short-lived YouTube notoriety Jimmy is a teenager in a crummy little town. He's got a lousy best friend, Simon; a porn habit; and an uncle whose miserable existence is the embodiment of life stalled in its tracks. He's also got a tender soul, a pure-hearted crush, and the makings of a budding artist. A horrible YouTube video of Jimmy dancing in his living room becomes viral, courtesy of Simon, and makes every sweet and hopeful thing about Jimmy seem utterly pathetic. Everyone from fellow classmates to the clerk at the corner store has seen the video, and Jimmy finds himself a celebrity in his town, just for the wrong reason. Unfortunately, the YouTube antics do not stop there. As in his debut graphic novella, Nicolas, Pascal Girard showcases a spare, deceptively simple style that is wonderfully expressive with pitch-perfect dialogue. Girard utilizes a drawn line full of tentative, exploratory, and intuitive emotion, a line as sure of the treasure it carries as is the book's quiet hero.

Bigfoot

440a9748-a1b7-47e2-899c-0dc35e64e9e9-1

Michel Rabagliati

Rabagliati`s strip "Paul: Apprentice Typographer" was one of the highlights of 1999`s Drawn & Quarterly anthology, and his first comic book Paul in the Country won the 2000 Harvey award for Best New Talent. This, his first graphic novel, is eagerly anticipated by comix connoisseurs who enjoy a sweet, unsentimental story about being a teenager and Rabagliati's crisp retro-modern 1950s drawing style. Paul Has a Summer Job continues the story of Paul, a Quebecois teenager in the 1970s, as he experiences the first conflicts of responsibility with his desire to be free. Paul is outraged that he is forced to stop his high school art training. But he's been asked to put art aside because his other grades are so terribly low. Defiant, he quits school and anticipates a summer of leisure. But instead Paul follows the path of so many Quebecois teenagers: he lands a job as a counselor at one of the many summer camps in the mountains outside the city. There he finds himself guiding a motley band of kids, misfits and troublemakers, much like himself.

Paul Has a Summer Job

Aleshia Jensen

A profound and personal exploration of the intersections of womanhood, femininity, and creativity This Woman’s Work is a powerfully raw autobiographical work that asks vital questions about femininity and the assumptions we make about gender. Julie Delporte examines cultural artifacts and sometimes traumatic memories through the lens of the woman she is today—a feminist who understands the reality of the women around her, how experiencing rape culture and sexual abuse is almost synonymous with being a woman, and the struggle of reconciling one’s feminist beliefs with the desire to be loved. She sometimes resents being a woman and would rather be anything but. Told through beautifully evocative colored pencil drawings and sparse but compelling prose, This Woman’s Work documents Delporte’s memories and cultural consumption through journal-like entries that represent her struggles with femininity and womanhood. She structures these moments in a nonlinear fashion, presenting each one as a snapshot of a place and time—trips abroad, the moment you realize a relationship is over, and a traumatizing childhood event of sexual abuse that haunts her to this day. While This Woman’s Work is deeply personal, it is also a reflection of the conversations that women have with themselves when trying to carve out their feminist identity. Delporte’s search for answers in the turmoil created by gender assumptions is profoundly resonant in the era of #MeToo.

This Woman's Work

Guy Delisle knows all the worst parenting techniques

Guy Delisle, the author of Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City and A User's Guide to Neglectful Parenting, shares hilarious new comic strips that pay tribute to all the ways parents can drive their kids crazy, and vice versa, in The Owner's Manual to Terrible Parenting.
Slipping grammar lessons into bedtime stories, being challenged by difficult toys, and pretending to forget you even have a son: it's all in a day's work for Delisle. In The Owner's Manual, Delisle doesn't hesitate to make a slightly bumbling, fictionalized version of himself the butt of the joke, though his children often contribute zingy repartee and laugh-out-loud insight in the stories on display here.
The Owner's Manual is the perfect antidote to frustrating car rides filled with "Are we there yet?" and epic battles over homework. Delisle's effortless pacing and witty punch lines reign supreme here, making each vignette zip along to its conclusion.

Browse by categories

Fabien Vehlmann

Beautiful Darkness

Helge Dascher

Hostage

Guy Delisle

Pyongyang

Helge Dascher

Aya: Life in Yop City

Pascal Girard

Petty Theft

Philippe Girard

Leonard Cohen

Marguerite Abouet

Aya: the Secrets Come Out

Marguerite Abouet

Aya

Guy Delisle

Jerusalem

Clement Oubrerie

Aya: Love in Yop City

Tian Veasna

Year of the Rabbit

Julie Delporte

Everywhere Antennas

Pascal Girard

Bigfoot

Michel Rabagliati

Paul Has a Summer Job

Julie Delporte

This Woman's Work

Guy Delisle

The Owner's Manual to Terrible Parenting